Down in the lower levels, Amir and Kahraman showed the improved Smart Tactical Backpack to Gulina. The little Witch marveled at it.
"This thing is too useful. We need this desperately!" Gulina quickly familiarized herself with its operation. With Amir's help, she packed up the remaining ten or so units.
This was just a trial batch for the Resistance to test out; there would be more later.
Currently, the assembly line had over a dozen droids working day and night. Although the production speed wasn't as fast as imagined, it was still decent considering the facility had just been set up and hadn't expanded yet.
If they could acquire a better factory, production efficiency would skyrocket. It wouldn't take long to supply one to every person in the Alliance.
Gulina didn't stay too long. Amir accompanied her around the space station, and after lunch, Mona brought Milisen back. The two of them took the batch of Smart Tactical Backpacks and departed.
Milisen was left wanting more, feeling the loss of her friends after their departure. Under Amir's pressure, she had no choice but to turn her grief into motivation and focus on her studies.
With that task finished, Amir and Kahraman began their research on the exoskeleton.
Based on Kahraman's existing technology, the components required for the exoskeleton were basically up to standard. The important part was converting "internal" mechanics to "external" ones.
But this conversion wasn't that simple.
The concept of cybernetics had always been about replacing the human body's own trunk or limbs and accessing the nerves to achieve a feeling of perfect integration. However, an external mechanical skeleton was different.
The key lay in how the external skeleton could achieve the best tacit understanding with the movement of the torso, perfectly executing the user's will.
The best way to solve this problem was to connect the exoskeleton to the nerves. But since it was an exoskeleton, it had to be removable. With current technology, accessing the nerves meant connecting machinery into the body, which couldn't be uninstalled at any time. Doing so would be less convenient than just modifying oneself into a cyborg.
But using other technologies—like the optimal kinetic assistance system—presented issues. Ideally, when you waved your arm, the exoskeleton would move with your action, applying an auxiliary strengthening force in the same direction.
This method seemed suitable, but the degree was hard to grasp. It was possible that you just wanted to scratch your head, and the result would be tearing off your own skull.
This specific item could be solved, though. Amir had ideas about this early on.
"We can add an elastic buffer device between the human body and the exoskeleton. This device, combined with pressure sensors, can feel the human body's movement the instant it happens. It allows the body to achieve relatively balanced displacement without feeling too much recoil from the mechanical arm. When hitting an object, it also provides feedback to the user, giving them ample time to decide whether to stop or increase force."
"Like adding a middleman to transmit commands between the body and the exoskeleton."
Kahraman listened seriously. "'Middleman.' An interesting metaphor. But we can take it a step further. The mechanical exoskeleton will definitely use the lightest materials, so we can increase the volume of the sensors. We can cover the surface of the human body with a layer of sensors. By sensing the movement of the internal muscles at all times through various signals, we can judge the possible movement trajectory of the body, allowing the exoskeleton to drive the action in complete synchronization."
"Can that be done?" Amir had thought of this method, but his horizons limited his imagination. He hadn't yet touched the top-tier technology in this field within the galaxy.
Kahraman smiled. "It can be done, but it's difficult. This requires analyzing the meaning represented by the movement of every muscle in the human body, and every combination, every variation . . . Thinking of creating this system yourself is extremely difficult, but I know someone who has long researched this."
"Who?"
"Oh, a pervert," Kahraman said with a look of reminiscence. "But also a genius."
"Not long ago, she suddenly became obsessed with fully bionic droids. Unlike those droids that only look similar on the outside, she pursued simulation from the inside out—from internal organs to bones, then to muscles and skin . . ."
"Because of this, she's in the impoverished Outer Rim. she signed agreements with many dying people to purchase their corpses after death. She used them to conduct a massive amount of research. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Knowledge of muscle movement is not difficult for her."
Amir was surprised to hear this. The galaxy was indeed a big place with all kinds of people.
"Why would she do that?"
"Sigh. She and I were university classmates. That was decades ago, studying on Coruscant. We both liked mechanics, but our focus was different. I was keen on modification and prosthetics, while she liked robotics and artificial intelligence."
"During her years at the university, she studied while creating an independent consciousness and gave it a simulated body."
"But under her settings, this intelligence learned without any restrictions. It gradually became obsessive, even mad. I went to see her at that time, but she wouldn't give up. She kept trying to optimize her creation."
"But one day, this intelligence suddenly turned on her. It beat her into critical condition, escaped the laboratory, and caused a lot of destruction. Fortunately, no one else was hurt. Heh, funny enough, it was two Jedi Knights who helped us find that droid."
"After that, she left the school. She took her results and ran to the Outer Rim alone to do research. Seven or eight years ago, she found me and begged for my research data on prosthetics, saying she wanted to use mechanics to create a perfect human body."
"I've seen her three times in the last few years. Her living conditions are terrible, and she looks like she's about to die, but she has indeed researched a lot of things. I also learned about her research on the human body—it's detailed to a heinous degree. If she returned to academia, she would definitely cause a sensation."
Amir felt this story was very interesting and became interested in Kahraman's old classmate.
"What's her name?"
"Joan Hurtado."
"We can go see her."
. . .
After the establishment of the Empire, people's thinking became highly closed off. On the vast majority of planets occupied by the Empire, scientific research and academia were firmly controlled. Under the oppression of fear, thought gradually lost its freedom.
Results detrimental to the Empire or its rule were sealed or seized, becoming waste paper in the Imperial archives.
And those obsessed with scientific research had either joined the Empire—squeezing out every bit of their knowledge under orders to provide the Empire with more powerful military force, abandoning their pursuits and ideals—or they could only turn into unwilling corpses, or hide anonymously. Even then, there was the risk of being discovered.
The thinking of the people lost its vitality, and the spark of innovation was snuffed out. This led to stagnation in all aspects of the entire galaxy. People could only piece together barely usable things from piles of junk, while the Empire's top-tier scientific research results were constantly updated, with more powerful weapons and fleets coming out one after another.
It was too difficult to find people in the galaxy who were dedicated to scientific research.
Kahraman had risked his life for more than ten years to gain a foothold and establish the pure land that was the Eternal Ark.
Amir wondered how that woman named Joan had persisted until now.
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